Bitcoin-related jobs are the fastest growing category of role on international employment marketplace Freelancer, the company said Wednesday.
With 82 percent growth in the third quarter, work related to cryptocurrency is skyrocketing, the data showed. The company’s periodic report tracks top trends in online jobs based on the listings on its Freelancer.com platform.
“People are getting freelancers to design new types of cryptocurrencies,” Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer, told CNBC. One of the main skills for which companies are looking is the ability to manage an initial coin offering — when a new digital token is first sold to outside speculators in a bid to raise money.
According to Freelancer, employers were also looking for people to create new cryptocurrencies and to write proposal plans for technologies employing blockchain — the data structure pioneered by bitcoin.
The related field of cryptography saw the number of job listings rise 59 percent in the third quarter, according to Freelancer.
Bitcoin’s popularity has seen ups and downs in recent years, but the cryptocurrency has enjoyed repeated record highs in recent months, breaking above the $6,250 mark on Sunday.
Freelancer.com listed more than 480,000 new jobs in the third quarter and has over 12 million jobs to date with 25 million users, according to the company.
The top employee abilities that companies sought were: Adobe InDesign, 3D design, creative design, web language HTML5 and e-commerce platform WooCommerce.
In social media, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat dominated the platforms — surpassing the likes of Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus.
